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Opening of a new branch of clinic in Kenya

Gerard Hartmann and Hartmann-International Sports Injury Clinic have had a relationship with elite Kenyan athletes that spans two decades. The list of Kenyan Olympic medallists, world record holders and world champions who have been treated, coached, rehabilitated and mentored back to winning performances on the world athletics stage by Gerard Hartmann reads like a roll of honour.

If you ask Gerard Hartmann he will tell you that a large part of his heart lies in Kenya’s simplistic organic lifestyle.

However there will be nothing simplistic about the new collaboration between Hartmann-International Sports Injury Clinic and the High Altitude Training Centre, which is run by Lornah Kiplagat and caters for the training needs of the world’s best athletes all year round.

Lornah Kiplagat is recognised world wide for the great efforts she is going to in creating an avenue of education for Kenyan boys and girls in "The Lornah Kiplagat Foundation". Every year these students gain entry to many leading Universities in the United States and Canada who would never had the opportunity without her foundation.

Her vision has now grown to the Lornah Kiplagat Sports Academy, an eight million euro state of the art College which will allow the next generation of Kenyan athletes to grow both academically and athletically which is shortly due to begin construction.

Lornah has benefited from Gerard Hartmann’s expertise while competing as an elite athlete and so has requested that Hartmann-International Sports Injury Clinic head the physiotherapy department in the college in conjunction with Moy University, which is based in Eldoret.

In this way the man who has affectionately become known as "Daktari", which means Doctor, in the lore of elite Kenyan athletics will now have a means to pass on his knowledge to the next generation of athletes to come, while treating the current stars of athletics.

The opening of the clinic also coincides with the recent announcement that UK Athletics have named the High Altitude Training Centre in Iten, Kenya as their primary altitude-training centre up to and beyond the London 2012 Olympics (Mo Farah already spends half his year based in Iten).

So in more ways than one the opening of Hartmann-International Sports Injury Clinic, in Iten is literally a marriage made in heaven as it is located at an altitude of 8,000 feet high up in the Rift Valley Escarpment and keeps the rich tradition of Irish influence in this Mecca of athletics alive which Brother Colm began over 35 years ago.